Set Apart

Ronald J. Sider, author of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (a book that deeply impacted me) just released a new book titled The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience. In it, Sider paints a pretty disturbing picture of the Evangelical Christian, asserting that the average Christian lives exactly the same as their non-Christian neighbor. Specifically, Sider argues (backed up by information compiled by the Barna Research Group) that Evangelical Christians have similar rates of divorce, premarital sex, domestic violence and use of pornography than non-believers, and are actually more likely to hold racist views than other people. Sider says, "by their daily activity, most Christians' regularly commit treason. With their mouths they claim that Jesus is their Lord, but with their actions they demonstrate their allegiance to money, sex, and personal self-fulfillment."

God gave the Isrealites the Law not so they would have rules to follow and be able to achieve worthiness, but so that they would be set apart, so they would be different from others.

"But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." 1 Peter 2:9

Is personal moral purity wrong? Obviously not, but we can quickly become so focused on our own purity that we miss the message Jesus spoke. We begin to reduce the Gospel to a formula for the forgiveness of sins and the saving of our own personal soul, Bonhoeffer called it "cheap grace." Rather, Jesus called us to a life of transformation "out of darkness into His marvelous light," one marked more by action rather than reflection. Once again, is reflection wrong? No. But if all we do is reflect inwardly on how to become a better person and how to follow Jesus more precisely, we will simply become pharisees.

"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
"If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.

The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.

Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

Isaiah 58:6-12

If we spend ourselves on behalf of others, our own personal moral purity mysteriously appears. Our salvation is not earned through works, but our complete restoration is achieved through works.

Evangelical Christians have a problem, we are so focused on our own personal walk with God that we don't see our neighbor's need (and unfortunately they see our hypocrisy) and miss the opportunity to incarnate the Good News. This was recently on a friend's blog that I found remarkable:

We have become so fixated on personal (and very political) issues that we have missed our true calling as followers of Christ. We are more defined by what we are against rather than what we are for, who we don't like rather than who we love. The sanctity of life is a huge issue, but what about the sanctity of the lives' of children (or adults for that matter) in Iraq, or the 30,000 children that die every day from hunger and poverty?

Sadly, most Evangelical Christians have bought into "cheap grace." If we are going to be the Church that Jesus intended us to be, we must be a community set apart, not individuals living moral (or as the study shows not-so-moral) lives separately. We must live out the upside-down nature of Jesus' message by listening to His Spirit and following His call together, in the opposite direction of the culture. Most of us have been, to paraphrase Shane Claiborne, admiring and worshiping Jesus but not following Him and actively doing what He did. . . . We adore His cross without taking up ours.

We don't simply need to be believers, we need to be converts, converted from conforming to the patterns of this world.

We need to be set apart.

Missionaries of Charity

I am reading a biography on the life of Mother Teresa. I came across these two stories that I found really funny. As most of you know, the Missionaries of Charity, the order started by Mother Teresa, accepted a life of extreme poverty. She would say, "our rigorous poverty is our safeguard." When faced with the challenge of adhering to this vow, Mother Teresa said,

"We do not want to do what other religious orders have done throughout history, and begin by serving the poor only to end up unconsciously serving the rich. In order to understand and help those who have nothing, we must live like them. . . . The only difference is that these people are poor by birth, and we are poor by choice."

The sisters found ways to use things twice, and never took items that could be used to help the poor they were serving. On many occasions the sisters would use the old sacks of wheat to sow into habits (distinctive set of clothing worn by religious orders). The lettering could not always be washed out and beneath the pleats across one sister's behind were the words "Not for resale." Another sister needed shoes desperately, but the only ones available were a pair of red stiletto heals. Her hobbling appearance in such unsuitable footwear had the sisters laughing hysterically.

More Romero. . .

Some more Romero.

In our preaching to rich and poor, it is not that we pander to the sins of the poor and ignore the virtues of the rich. Both have sins and both need conversion. But the poor, in their condition of need, are disposed to conversion. They are more conscious of their need of God.

All of us, if we really want to know the meaning of conversion and of faith and confidence in another, must become poor, or at least make the cause of the poor our own inner motivation. That is when one begins to experience faith and conversion: when one has the heart of the poor, when one knows that financial capital, political influence, and power are worthless, and that without God we are nothing.

To feel that need of God is faith and conversion.

From The Violence of Love by Oscar Romero

I am a worker

I started reading Oscar Romero's The Violence of Love a few years back. Basically it is a collection of his sermons that he spoke towards the end of his life, just before his assassination in 1980. From 1977 (the year I was born) until March 24th, 1980, Romero preached a message of love. A message that spoke out against the torture and murder that was going on against his Salvadorian people. In the midst of this violence Romero asked his congregation and those listening in on radio broadcasts to forgive their enemies, turn their cheek and embrace their oppressors. The title to the book came from the following passage about loving our enemies:

The violence we preach is not
the violence of the sword,
the violence of hatred.
It is the violence of love,
of brotherhood,
the violence that wills to beat weapons
into sickles for work.

(Oscar Romero, November 27, 1977)

The following was actually not written by Romero, but was dedicated to him after his assassination. Still, it is very powerful and spoke to some of the things I have struggled with when trying to figure out what exactly it means to be a believer who has a heavy heart for the least of these. When God gives us a glimpse of His Kingdom it is both overwhelming and extremely comforting - we can't do it all, but we can do some things. "We are workers, not master builders."

PROPHETS OF A FUTURE NOT OUR OWN

It helps now and then to step back and take a long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of
saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession
brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives include everything.

This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one
day will grow. We water the seeds already planted
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of
liberation in realizing this.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's
grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the
difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not
messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

New Video

Check out the new Mustard Seed Ministries video I put together for a speaking opportunity next week.

Mustard Seed Ministries from Andy Coulombe on Vimeo.